From Me To You
by misshastix
Summary: Three-shot. Brittana drabble. "I spent so many years looking for the difference between 'love' and 'in love' and it took me too long to realise that the answer lay in Santana."
1. Dear Santana

**Stage 1: Wondering**

It was a strange thing for me. Love, that was. It wasn't because I hadn't felt it before, I had. My parents loved me. My little sister loved me. Lord Tubbington loved me. And I loved them all right back.

But as I grew up, the people around me began to distance 'love' and 'in love' like they were two different things. It hadn't made sense to me at all. How could you be 'in' love with someone? Was it like being 'in' a swimming pool? 'In' a house? Did it surround you with its brick walls, or with its raging waters?

There were always questions in middle school that I did not have the answers too, and all of those soon became part of them.

I'd asked Quinn. Why? Because Quinn was Quinn. She was worldly, or out-of-the-world as according to all the teenage boys that surrounded us. She knew everything, had done everything. Except sex. I guess. But even that seemed to make her more knowledgable than the people who had engaged in such an activity.

Quinn had laughed at first. Not meanly. I had asked a genuine question. She wanted to know why though, did I think I was in love with someone?

I told her I wasn't. The question had always been at the back of my mind. My schoolmates surrounded me in the hall, proclaiming their love for their boyfriends or girlfriends and I just wanted to know how you knew that you were in love with them. Maybe you just loved them. There was always such a defining difference between the two.

Quinn usually answered all my questions in long and complicated sentences. I knew she tried to dumb them down for me sometimes, because she'd use a big word and then stop, and switch it for another, more easy to understand. But this time she had shrugged and told me I'd just know what the difference was when I'd felt it.

So I'd dropped it.

Until you, Santana, came along.

We knew each other first back in elementary. You, me and Quinn used to always play on the monkey bars. We wouldn't swing from them, though. We'd climb on top of them and survey our surroundings. I used to call Quinn 'Queen' because I'd actually thought it was her name. It suited her. She used to always sit the highest, the straightest, of all the girls in our year level.

And nobody except you questioned her. You were the only one who ever dared to go up against her. You were always questioning her, and as you grew older, you began to question authority more. How did they know that what was wrong was wrong? What was right was indeed right?

I'd once told you when we were swinging on my swing-set in my backyard that you were silly for doing such a thing. When a teacher told you off for doing something, you're not supposed to argue and stomp your foot, you're supposed to nod your head and apologise.

But you disagreed, you said that it wasn't right if you had to apologise to them if you were right. So I shut my mouth and I'd just comfort you when you got in trouble instead. Did you remember that? But you kept going on and on, and the teachers were getting annoyed. So I told you again that pulling stunts like that were useless, even if you were sneaking into the teachers office during recess to get me a band-aid because I was too scared to go the nurses office.

But I told you that teachers were older, just like our parents.

Even if they were wrong, they were right.

You had said that I didn't make any sense, but it did to me, so I just shrugged.

And then you disappeared. Your dad was a doctor and he'd gotten a better job in another hospital, so you'd left. You had left me and Quinn behind, and since I was a little kid, a best friend who held all sorts of security towards you, this was a huge blow.

I'd never forgotten the stung of that blow. It was as if someone had ripped away my blankie, or Teddy, the unicorn plush toy that I'd had since I was born. You had always said that Teddy was a dumb name for a unicorn, but once again, I had just shrugged.

You had told me that I was the only person who never argued back with her. Her parents did. Our teachers did. Her cousins did. Quinn. Everyone. Everyone except me.

I'd never known if I was meant to take that as a compliment, challenging an authority figure, that was. But not challenging the fiery ball that was Santana would bring about an entire other process which would change the course of our high school years in a way that neither of us had imagined.

It was the very last year of middle school that you re-appeared. You were older. Meaner, dare I say. You had become an amplified version of her childish self, and to many, it was unbearable, but to the boys, she became a goal, an object of desire. Nothing more, but nothing less.

And though you fell straight back into the friendship of Quinn and I, you only gave us half of you. I'd like to call it your sane half. The other half you gave away to the boys you began to screw mindlessly each night. I'd asked you about it once, if it hurt you or affected you in any way. She'd said no. I told you about the rumours going around. You said you couldn't care less.

Then I'd asked you if you were in love with any of them, or even if you just loved them in a different way. You'd said no. I didn't know why that made me happy, but it did.

We had had sex education that year. The teacher had told us that it was something a man and a woman did when they were in love. But all the boys and girls had been giggling and I had guessed that most of them had already gone there.

So I told you that. That sex was something to do when people were in love. That you was doing it wrong. And Santana hated being wrong. It was something you hated more than being challenged. So you had suddenly pinned me down on the bed. You'd told me that sex was meaningless. People made up the 'in love' excuse so they wouldn't appear unchaste. You told me that you were right in what she had said, and that I was wrong. I told you to prove it. You said fine in such a raspy voice that I wondered if you were proving more than just what you had stated before.

Then you had kissed me. It had been soft at first, but then as your mouth plunged against mine almost hungrily, something stirred inside of me, and at first I thought maybe it had something to do with the kissing, but the thought of kissing you didn't make me blush so much as the thought of your heart beating right next to mine.

You pressed your chest up against mine and then my clothes had come off, and then yours. And not once did I question you. When you was done, when I was done, you merely got dressed and headed towards the door as if all we had done was talk about the hot boys that did laps around the football fields.

When you'd gotten to the doorway I'd called out your name. I didn't think you would turn around. But you did. You'd asked, "What, Britt?" and I thought I saw tears in your eyes. I told you that I was sorry. When you asked what for, I told you for being wrong. And when I expected you to rub it in my face, you'd said softly, "I was wrong." And then you'd left without an explanation.

And I never asked for one, either.

**Stage 2: Processing**

I didn't know what had finally clicked in you to tell you that you loved me. But I never questioned it. I never questioned you. There was no, "Why now? Why not before?"

I'd known it all along, anyway. It would be futile asking those questions. I'd known she had loved me ever since we were four. And even as she confessed it to me, face-to-face, with tears in her honest eyes, it wasn't enough. I loved her too, I was sure of that. But was I in love with her?

But a girl loving a girl had consequences, yet I cared none for them. Peoples opinions of me rolled off like water off a duck's back. Unless they called me stupid. Being called stupid was degrading. It was bullying and I would not accept it. Santana cared all too much for the consequences.

We were such polar opposites, perhaps that's why we seemed to fit together so well. Like the yin and the yang, Santana was everything that I was not, though there was a part of us in each other, and that part, small and dormant as it had been at the start, had grown so large I knew deep down that Santana was going to have to figure herself out sooner or later. To figure us out.

Then you wanted to know how I felt about you. I told you that I loved you. There was that word again. Love. Only one word. Not two. There was no 'in love' not yet. Not yet when I could not understand the intricacies that those two words together held in my mind. Maybe I was so thick that I was unable to comprehend my emotions any further than 'love'. But even then, what I felt for you was so strong, it had to be more than that.

You asked me why. How could I possibly love someone like you. Someone so rash and confusion, someone who hurt me because they were unable to understand what was happening between us, what was moving so fast that neither of us were agile enough to grab it. I told you that everything that happens is so much nicer when I was with you.

It was a simple explanation. But simple is always enough. My answer was enough.  
I don't remember a time when I didn't love you.

Then we were forced out. Everything; stripped bare. We had to face consequences that were not aptly dealt with considering our situation. We were not at fault. We did nothing wrong. Yet there was the constant criticism from those who did not matter, yet you let them hound you. I saw it in your eyes. You believed their words, and I wondered why.

These strangers, people we did not know, people that just a year ago, you would have no trouble slushying, were spewing unbelievable words from their despicable mouths that you started to believe. You were stronger than that. I know you were. But you ended up listening to them. You ignored what you wanted as an individual.

And for what?

I knew our relationship would work. It wasn't all us, I knew other people influenced us. The way we acted. How much we were allowed to touch. To hold. We were never restricted in Glee club. Everyone is allowed to act how they want there. That's why you love it, isn't it? There's no judgement; only freedom. But despite the others, we'd work. We had too.

And then you realised. You realised that it was you and me and me and you and after that we were fine. No, we were beyond fine, we were perfect. Everyone else had ups and downs, stealing each others girlfriends or boyfriends, getting knocked up, using each other, but it was you and me and me and you and nothing like that ever happened between us.

My desire to stay with you was so strong. I went along with everything you said. I went to the utmost lengths for you. I stayed committed to you and only you. There was no more sleeping around, not like before when we were slinking around in the shadows like bandits in the night.

I only looked at you. I never strayed.

Yet when we held hands in the park, at Breadstix, in the school hall, I always wondered what it meant. Holding hands. Mothers held their childs hand as they crossed a road. For what? Safety? So I asked you. "Why are you holding my hand?"

You gave me your usual look when I asked you a weird question. Your look wasn't critical, it never was. Just curious, and slightly amused.

"Because I love you."

You said it so many times.

'I love you'

'I love you so much'

'I'll always you'

'I love how much you know me.'

'I love the way you say my name.'

'I love the way you say random facts.'

'I love the way your eyes light up and crinkle when you laugh.'

'I love how you worry about me even when I'm fine.'

So many variations yet they meant the same thing. That you were attached me to, emotionally and physically. But not once did you ever say 'I'm in love with you.'

So I asked. You raised one eyebrow and then you kissed me. "There's your answer." You said as you began to lower your kisses down my neck, onto my shoulder blade and down to my breast.

It was an answer, and I supposed I should have known what it meant, but I didn't. I wanted a straight answer but it looked like you wouldn't give it to me.

**Stage 3: Realising**

And when two people fall in what we commonly know as 'love', a deep and powerful bond is created between them. Everyone wants to have the perfect love life that we all see on movies and on T.V shows. The type of love that understands no matter the differences, and despite any faults or unrealistic tendencies bordering on each other, a love that will always prevail.**  
**  
But in reality this isn't what happens. We go into a relationship and expect to be with that person forever. Perhaps the feelings we had felt back then seemed too strong to ever go away. We spend so much time dreaming and praying for it, when in reality a relationship is a lot of work.

There are two people to consider. One person is in Louisville, at college, the other is still stuck in Lima, repeating their senior year. One is going places. One may be stuck in this small town forever. One is brazen, hopeful, and the other is wondering why she isn't happy. And these two people only see each other once every few weeks.

One thinks this is the greatest thing ever, and the other one wants to know how the other person could possibly just leave them behind like that.

And so our unrealistic views of a relationship, the views we had spent so many youthful years entertaining, clash with the actual realities of our situations. Resentment, abandonment push away what was once so easily accepted. Anger and jealousy suddenly arise. The feeling of constantly having to compete with other people you don't even know, although the other person should already be yours.

The two of us are separate beings, and we live separate lives. This had never really been present in our thoughts, but once it was out there, oh boy, was it out there.

Then suddenly you were here after so many weeks being distant. I was supposed to be happy. I really was. I tried to be. But I couldn't. I resented you. You left me like I was nothing. You kept saying that you loved me, yet you had left me here.

Maybe I was irrational. I couldn't ask you to give up your cheerleading scholarship. You loved cheerleading. I was the one who had helped you get it in the first place. You were so unsure about your future. I needed to push you in the right direction. You know where to go, Santana, you just needed the confidence to do it.

But my own actions were suddenly taking a large toll on what I held most dear. Our relationship. And you were smart, you had always been smart. Your whole family was smart, and you were definitely one of them. You knew. You knew how I felt, just like you always have. You always doubt your judgement, Santana. But remember how you hate being wrong?

People always hate that they don't know. And you do not know being wrong. You were right, but how I wished you were wrong.

You said it wasn't official, but I knew it was. How could you only 'half' break up with someone? It was all or nothing. That's what you always used to say, remember?

'Remember when you said we'd be alright?'

Yet you were here, telling me how you weren't a good girlfriend. Acknowledging that I was allowed someone better. _Allowed. _I was not a toy. You can't just give me away when you weren't able to take care of me.

Maybe I had set my expectations of you so high because I would do anything for you without a second thought.

'I'll never get tired of you.'

Yet you were here, in front of me, telling me how you had an energy exchange with a random girl in a cafe.

'I want you, nothing else. Just you.'

Yet you were here, in front of me, _leaving me._ You were _leaving me._

And it hit me all at once so hard. Just like when you're playing soccer and the ball hits you in the stomach and for a few seconds you can't breath. You're stunned. You can't move. You're immobilised. That's exactly how it felt like.

I kept trying to shake my head.

"No."

I was screaming so hard that nothing was coming out.

"No."

"No."

"No."

Why do good things always come to an end? _Everything always ends._

There was no _forever _there was only a now, a then, and a later.

And all three had ended so much sooner than we both had thought.

When you lose someone, someone that you love, when they break your heart, it's the hardest thing you could ever go through. You think that it will get better the more that time passes, but it never truly goes away. Sometimes you think you are getting better, but then you'll hear a song.

"_And maybe the Landslide will bring us down."_

Or you'll have a flashback.

_"I love you."  
"I love you too, so much, Britt."_

And it will hit you all over again. You will get so many soccer balls aimed at your gut that you won't remember how to breathe by the time the pain fades.

And it's because you loved the person with all of you. Maybe you didn't realise it back then, but you realise it now. Oh, you definitely realise it now. Maybe you shouldn't have, maybe it's foolish to give so much of yourself away to someone who can just so easily pack up and leave. Perhaps you should just love yourself. After all, it's not like you can leave yourself.

Other people come into your life, whether you welcome them into it or not. And they give you chances to move on, and you want too, you really do. I wanted to love Sam. I did. He was kind and funny and he wanted me to be happy, even though you took my happiness with you when you left.

I wanted to love Josh, the boy in the apartment next door. He was a bit of a partier, but he wanted me to have fun. He wanted me to enjoy life. And when he kissed me, I really wanted to feel something.  
But I didn't.

I was open to loving other girls. But I couldn't. They all smelled the same. Like raspberries and cherries and the cool ocean breeze. None of them smelt like the raging fire that portrayed your personality so well, or the sweet honey scent that portrayed your inner kindness and love. It was all too similar, yet it wasn't the same at all.

It all felt impossible. Moving on is saying goodbye to everything that was home, that was familiar to you. Everything that made you happy. Moving on meant accepting that something else made me happier than I was with you.

And I did. I moved on. It took several years, college graduation, a new job, well, maybe three, before I did. Now I can look back at old picture albums and smile. We were so cute as teenagers. I was so oblivious to everything that had gone wrong with us. Oblivious to you, and your faults.

I realised then I was maybe holding onto your memories so tightly that I couldn't really live my life. I was waiting for you to come running back, but you never did.

But now I have found someone that I will actually create a home with. Someone who knows me better inside and out, better than I know myself sometimes. Someone else is making me happier than the memories that I cherished and held so dear to me of us. Someone else is making me feel more valuable than you ever did.

I had waited so long for that day; and I was glad it had come when it had. Sitting alone in misery with your cat does nothing good for the heart.

I had spent so many years wondering what being 'in love' was. What it was opposed to love. Some people said that love was reserved for families, but I've seen some people in families who love each other more than they love their husband. Some people said it was reserved for those in a relationship, but how could I possibly say that I loved Santana when we were four and that I loved her now?

As I sit here, staring at the blank wall in front of me, I am prepared to think out loud the conclusion that I have known from the very start.

There's a hand on my back. Someone telling me that they love me. It's someone who isn't you.

But even so I could not stop thinking about the conclusion that I had searched so long to find.

I am in love with you.

I have looked for a conclusion to my question for so long, yet I had known it deep inside all along. I had searched so hard for an answer; but my answer resided in you.

"_What if I told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you?"_

Love,

Brittany.

* * *

**AN: This piece took place in Brittany's mind.**

I was bored in the airport and decided to try a one-shot, hope you guys liked it :)


	2. Dear Brittany

There are always so many different answers to the same questions. You can answer 'good' 'fine' 'terrible' when someone asks how you are.  
You can answer 'ten' 'five 'fifty' when someone asks you what three hundred and sixty five times six is. Maybe those other answers are wrong, but they're still answers, right? Even though the _correct _answer to that question is two thousand, one hundred and ninety days.

And I know that because that's how many days have gone by since I've last seen you.

Ever since elementary school, teachers were prided on educating us with the correct answers to all the questions that they asked.  
"Two plus two?"  
"Four." I would answer proudly. My tiny fingers would curl in a giddy fist when the teacher told me I was correct. Though my answer was the correct one, it was not the first one spoken.

"Two." You had said with the same equal amount of pride. You had been sitting next to me on the ABC mat. I had glared at you, thinking that maybe you were right, and I was wrong although I was sure I had known the answer. When the teacher had told you it was wrong I was surprised. But I had known it was two all that time, hadn't I?

And even then I continued to stare long after the teacher had spoken. You looked so different to me. I thought that's why I was so fascinated with you. With your pale blonde hair that fell over your eyes in your unevenly cut fringe and your twinkling ocean-coloured eyes. You were like a doll.

I realised later on that there was something in your voice that drew me in. That made you believe every word you said although deep down I know that most of the time your answers relating to study, at the very least, were usually incorrect. But I never corrected you. Maybe it was because you were so happy answering a question with an incorrect answer, or maybe it was because your voice could allude me to believing that maybe, just maybe, all questions didn't have just the one answer. That there were multiple, and it did not matter whether they were correct or incorrect.

Just as long as they were spoken by you, by your low voice and pale pink lips, all answers seemed to blur into one.

It wasn't until our last year of middle school when I came back to Lima that you announced me your best friend in front of everyone. I think Quinn was jealous. Who could blame her? I'd disappeared for so many years and then I'd come back but you had suddenly declared you liked me better? She then distanced herself from us, but I think she had always been a little distant, a little different. More of a leader than a follower, and though you and I were both independent and soon-to-be popular, we followed her anyway, realising the acts we had to commit to stay as popular we were. Even Quinn couldn't keep us at the top with her if we began to fall behind.

So I started committing those acts. Acts that were only meant to be enjoyed by two people who loved each other, as my mother and father had told me. But the more I did, the easier they became. There came a point where it was much too easy; I was too comfortable with giving myself away like that.

But nobody said anything. The girls never said anything; they never called me any names although I'm sure they thought them in private, and of course the boys never said anything; perhaps except to tell their friends to 'have a shot'.

Then you did. You said something. You said the same thing that my parents said. And you couldn't understand why I was doing them for the reason that I was. I told you it was meaningless, that people gave sex too much meaning when it was really only an activity that lasted several minutes at best. People put too much thought into it, too much emotion. It was unnecessary.

I told you all of those things yet you didn't look like you believed me. Your face was innocent, untainted, full of purity. And I don't know why, but I could not bare it. Not one bit. So I looked at you one more time, maintaining our eye contact before I leaned forward and kissed you, and in that instant you suddenly became everything that I had never knew I needed.

And though sex had been meaningless to me before, it had suddenly taken on a new meaning. Questions were running through my head and I felt like they were in another language and I could not decipher them. All that I knew were answers.

The palest skin was on the top of your thigh.  
Your lips actually tasted like the pink-coloured candy floss that I buy you at the mall.  
You weren't as gentle and as fragile as you looked.  
_I love you._

The last answer was something that I could not deal with. I had been around heterosexual couples all my life. I had taken part in them myself. How could I deal with the fact that I loved you? It seemed so much more complicated than the movies portray, and that was because you were a girl. A girl with the softest touch, the roughest kiss, the silkiest voice, and I loved that, and I loved you.

"What was most important?"

You were.

I knew that. I had known it all along since our first year of elementary school where you shouted out the wrong answer with so much confidence. I wish I could do that. Be wrong. Give an important question an incorrect answer.

But I couldn't, and I had to face it. I had to face everyone, and most importantly, I had to face you.

Finn was right. I was afraid you'd reject me. That you'd tell me that I was gross. That after all that we had been through, that you'd turn your back on me like I was nothing to you. But you didn't. You accepted me with open arms and although you were not ready for our relationship to further just yet, it was more than I could have dreamt of.

But I am selfish. It is a fault that I am unashamed of. I will go after what I want. So I relentlessly pursued you. Waited patiently for your downfall with Artie, which was a result of our very own downfall. And eventually my patience proved me successful, and suddenly I was allowed to call you mine. Sometimes I felt like I was in a dreamland, in a blur of a world, because everything seemed right and every time you asked me a question I could always give you the right answer.

"San, do you love me?" Your voice was teasing, playful. I can still remember it so clearly in this moment six years onwards.

"Yes." One word, but an entire truth. An entire meaning behind it.

"Do you think we'll be together forever?" Cliche. Too movie-like. A promise.

"Yes." And I'd meant it. You had given me everything that I had ever wanted. You had given me you. So anything you asked for, you would get it, and that was something that I strived towards every day, and that small little goal kept me happy, as silly as it sounds.

I couldn't wait for our lives to begin together.

I'd had it all planned out. We'd graduate this year, we'd both get into the same college. I wasn't sure which one it would be yet, but I would find one that offered something that we'd both want to do. I found myself yearning for one in New York, but I would settle for any town as long as you were by my side. We would share one dorm. We could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. We would be together, just the two of us.

I imagined us baking cookies, you decorating yours with small little unicorns and hearts on them, and mine, in the shape of love hearts just to be cute. I imagined us maybe getting a puppy or something when we both finished college, when we were qualified enough to get a proper job and buy a proper house. I imagined me proposing to you, getting down on one knee one night when you were cooking dinner for the both of us.

A big box was next to me; it still would have some of our stuff in it because we were both too busy making love on the newly set up bed to bother unpacking our stuff. It was full of things that we had collected on our small trips together. There was so much happiness in the big box.

And you found happiness in the little box. You loved the ring. You loved me. Everything was perfect. It was my dream.

But all those images and plans vanished when you told me that you weren't graduating. I grabbed at anything my mind managed to conjure up to keep you with me. I would stay in Lima a year, maybe get a full-time job at the Lima Bean although I hated customer service and would rather stab myself in the forehead with a spoon. That's right, a spoon. But it was for you, so I could.

But no, you told me no. It was one of the first times I had ever heard you say no so firmly. So I went on your wishes to the University of Louisville. And that's when I began to realise something. We were separate. Not separated, but separate.

I told myself it was all worth it in the long run, despite all of the sacrifices I would have to make along the way. I would have to go along with things that I didn't want, take things that I didn't need. But I told myself that anything would be better than losing you.

But after some time had passed, suddenly losing you didn't seem like the worse thing in the world. I had been so distracted with planning my life that I could not remember your sweet honey scent. The smell that used to drive me insane, the smell that used to linger and fill me with nostalgia of better days.

So I went back to Lima. You were everything to me. I had built my life around you. I couldn't deal with the fact that we were not how we used to be, and I was relieved when I looked into your eyes and knew that I still loved you.

But then I realised that I was right. I was usually always right, but this time I wished that I was wrong. We were different somehow, things were different between us. It wasn't just me forgetting your signature smell, or how your hair curled ever so slightly at the end, or the freckle on your cheek.

I wasn't sure if it was just the location, but something had changed within us and it wasn't working.

It wasn't working. Those three words echoed in my mind. What wasn't working? Why wasn't it working? How could it work?

But I couldn't find the answer to the last question. I knew heaps of possible ones, but none of them were the right one.

And so I had to accept it. And when I told you, you had to accept it. And I thought you would. I thought you despised me for leaving you. For leaving you in Lima whilst I was in another small town, living a much different life.

You shook your head no, and I didn't know what I was doing. I shook my head no, and I still didn't know what I was doing.

The image of two figures began to throb heavily in my mind, replaying over and over again like a tape that I could not stop. It was us, our pinkies were intertwined. "Your pinkie has the vein that is closest to your heart." You had told me once. I had looked at you, my mouth was open to tell you that that was incorrect, but you had looked so happy, and so I smiled in response. My smile had grown bigger when you had suddenly linked your pinkie in mine.

It was then I knew that I loved you. Before the sex. Before everything.

I looked up at you. Really looked at you. I wondered where we had gone wrong. I scrutinised every little detail, every conversation that we had had, yet I couldn't find anything. I tried searching for the answers in your eyes, but all I could see were beautiful pools of blue.  
I tried to decipher what the unsaid words had meant. The expression scribbled all over your face was familiar; sadness, anger, confusion. They were familiar to me but they were not familiar on your face. It pained me. Seeing that on your face, something that it had never held before. It made me realise how much of an impact we had had on each other. We had changed each other in so many ways that it was almost impossible to ever just go back and forget about it.

But the unsaid words could do nothing except bounce around the walls that had suddenly been put up between us. Walls that used to smile at us upon our laughter and our happiness.

Suddenly all I could remember were those cold winter nights where your face was buried in my chest. My pinkie would be locked in yours in our tangled bodies.

"That hurts when you move," I would complain.

"But San, my face is cold," you would answer and all I could do was smile half-contentedly before I ran my fingers through your hair and listen to you sigh happily.

I heard you telling me saying something to whatever I was saying. I didn't even know I was saying. I felt like we were trapped in different glass boxes. I could see your mouth moving but I couldn't hear the words that were being spoken. I wanted to move my hand up to cup your face, but the glass was preventing me to do so. This break-up was preventing me from doing so. You were not mine anymore. They were the words spoken from my mouth and I wanted to take them back, but out of everything that you could retract, words were not one of them.

So I left Lima behind, deciding that this was no longer my home. I had lost you. You had been my home. My future. And you were gone. So now I was going.

I used to have so many answers when people asked me why we had broke up. 'Long-distance' 'An energy-exchange with someone else' 'It just wasn't working'

But was there really a correct answer for that question?

Being single was strange to me. I had either always had a two-week fling with a boy that I did not love, or I had been with you, who I had loved more than anything on this planet. I felt like a huge chuck of my life was missing. I know people always say that their significant is their other half, but this concept never really made sense to me until you were gone. I felt like I was missing half my routine.

Who was I supposed to call every night when they weren't with me to tell them goodnight and that I loved them? Who was I supposed to intertwine myself with in the darkness when they were? Who was I supposed to text constantly? Who was I supposed to drive around in my parents convertible?

Nobody. Everything had changed.

I soon adapted to life in New York with Rachel and Kurt. I know we used to secretly bag them in the girls' bathroom after school all those warm summer days, but they are good people, deep down. Very deep down.

I soon adapted to you not being around. I thought I never would. But never seeing you around certainly helped. Never hearing from you helped. It seemed such a strange, sad thought, but I decided not to dwell on it.

"It does not do to dwell on things and forget to live." It was a quote that I began to have to life by. I did not know who said it, and I could not be bothered finding out. I just decided not to dwell, although I knew deep down if I could trade the life I had worked so hard to build, for a life with you, I would.

But you did not feel the same. When I saw you again back at McKinley, I could feel the blood rush to my ears and all I could hear was my heart pulsating so loud I was sure you would be able to hear it just like you used to back then. But you didn't, you couldn't. And when I saw you and Sam, everything suddenly fell into place, like a jigsaw puzzle had finally lined up, like the heavy fog that had settled in my mind after I had left you suddenly disappeared.

I tried searching for an explanation on your face but you kept your lips in a thin line and revealed nothing. Everything between us had been perfect, but now I wasn't even sure what that word even meant anymore.

I wondered how you could throw me aside, how you could choose Sam over me after all that time and effort that we had invested in each other. How you could ignore all the bittersweet memories we shared in favour of a boy that we had once teased.

Bitterness covered me like a heavy blanket, like I was a small child who could not fight the weariness that was weaving through every inch of my body and dragging me down into the ground where I was no longer able to try and fight it.

Will you ever notice me again? Would you recognise me if you saw me on the street ten years from now? Would you fall in love with me again and regret your decisions today? But you told me to move on, and with my tongue trapped helplessly in my mouth and my feet planted firmly on the ground, all I could do was nod.

And I felt like then I should have hated you. I knew you were pushing me towards my dreams, but shouldn't you have known after all this time that you were my only dream? I could have hated you, but I could only remember when the universe had been so much more beautiful when you had been with me. The means words that used to escape my lips on a daily basis began to cut down, and it was because I was happy. Happy with you.

Everyday had been something to look forward too purely because of your existence. You had been everything to me. I thought about you night and day, every waking second, and you starred in almost all of my dreams. Brittany, you were my dream.

You returned the kiss that I had so recklessly given you and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to fell. I had had my world in my arms, yet it wasn't mind anymore.

When people that I met found out I was single, they would hit on me. I used to love soaking up the attention, but now it left a bitter taste in my mouth. And soon it was like high school all over again. There was mindless sex with a different person every week. It was a little better than it was back then, though. These people would do things for me whenever I asked them too. It was different for us, I remembered that. You used to do things for me without me saying a word, without making any gestures. You just knew. It was something that was instinctual, natural between us, and neither of us questioned it because of the simplicity and easiness it gave our relationship.

But these people were using me, and I was using them right back. I could never grow to love these people like I had loved you, and I began to wonder if you had broke me somehow. I wasn't the type of 'broken' that you would use to describe people that had been hurt from a relationship. I wasn't crying every night in front of a sappy love movie with a tub of ice-cream, at least, not any more.

No, I was like a broken toy. Nobody wanted me and I began to think that something was wrong with me. Something inside of me was broken. I could love another no more. And I wasn't sure if anyone could love me back.  
I was broken and I didn't know how to be fixed.

But one day, she came along. She took me in her arms and sang me a song that I never knew I wanted. She kissed all the parts of me and slowly I began to work again, I became unbroken.

I told her about you. I poured out my heart and soul to her one night and all she did was listen. I thought she was going to leave. But she stayed. She watched me cry as I mourned someone who wasn't even dead. Someone who was just several thousand miles away from me but seemed like worlds away.

And then when I was done she asked me a question. It was simple, at best.

"What have you learnt from all of that, though?"

I wondered if she was just terrible at comforting, but she had looked at me intently. She had provided me with such a thought-inducing question that I wasn't sure my mind would be able to keep up with my mouth.

I had learnt from you that it is possible to change someone. How they may change you into someone that had been so nasty, to someone who actually began to slowly care about those around them. How you can change them from someone insecure about their learning capabilities to someone who was sure of themselves and their own abilities. That that may not change in the way you planned, but they will change somehow, and in the process, they will leave parts of you with them. I had all these parts of you, but like pieces of a different puzzle, none of them went together, and maybe I would have to be okay with that.

I learnt that they can do the most surprising things, that they can exceed every expectation you ever had of them, whether it be good or bad. That they can get into the best college in the entire world even if they hadn't been able to graduate senior year with you. That they can live out their acting dreams in New York even after they were so hesitant to perform in Glee club initially.

That it was okay to go slow, to take baby steps. That it was okay to realise you couldn't control how you felt. That you cannot always just let go of pain or hurt although you want to so bad. That's it okay to just _feel._

That our brains don't have to be on the same wavelength, that we have to compromise to both be happy. That the little things are really the big things. That stability and trust builds security and confidence. It builds a garden for love to flourish.

That you have to be patient with other people, that you have to understand how they work if you want to really know them. That sometimes things are worth the struggle; and sometimes they aren't.

That it's easier to grow together. It's easier to feel together, it's easier to cry together. It's easier to be _in love _together.

I've learnt that I don't want to be alone anymore. That I had loved you and that was all. That the reason why I had was because you made me feel like nothing was ever missing. I never wanted to let you go, but I had. I've learnt that people are unpredictable and maybe you will never really know them, as much as you claim too.

I've learnt that the person who you thought you'd love 'forever' may not be in your life five years later, and that there is no fate or destiny, that whatever happens, happens.

She lies with me now. Her fingers are intertwined in my hair. She's kissing my neck and I am murmuring. I do not make any intelligible words with the noises that come out of my mouth so she continues. And I do not know why, but I am thinking of you. I am thinking of you and I cannot stop. So I reach underneath my pillow and find a small box.

Maybe happiness can be found in a smaller box, rather than a larger one.

I roll off the bed with as much grace as I can possibly muster. She looks at me, confused. It's not the same confused you look you used to give me. Where you would tilt your head slightly to the left, where your eyes would widen and your bottom lip would stick out just the tiniest smudge. No, it was different. She was so different to you.

And for me, that was good. I could not bare to be with someone who was so like you, but not you.

I get down on one knee. It was cliche, I know. You would have laughed, but I could almost see the joy in your eyes as I imagined you in my mind.

But you are not her. She creeps towards me slowly and she takes a deep breath before she asks my name questioningly. I smile at her almost sadly in response before a question escapes my lips.

"Will you marry me?"

And in that moment, I suddenly realised that whatever her answer was, whatever was meant to be the right or wrong answer to this question, it didn't matter. It suddenly occurred to me that whether she said 'yes' 'no' or 'maybe', it wouldn't affect me.

And it was because the person answering it wasn't you.

* * *

AN: Was supposed to be a one-shot but I thought doing one from Santana's P.O.V (so yeah this takes place in Santana's head) would be fun too! Reviews of any kind are most appreciated :)


	3. To The Both Of Us

_Dear Brittany, 12/12/20_

I wondered why people hurt so much when they are in a relationship. Being in a relationship seems to be what every teenager and what every adult aspires too, yet once they are in one, they always seem discontent.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had never felt that with you.

But I feel that now. I never thought I would. I love this girl, I do, Brittany, but it doesn't seem like enough. She has become everything that she said she wouldn't. She said that she understood me and my past. Where I come from, the place I call Lima. My past with you. I said that I'd never let someone tell me what to do, that I'd never let anyone control me, and I had meant it at the time, I had meant it with you. But I let her tell me what to do. I am letting her control my life and that I cannot stand. I feel like if I do not do what she tells me to do, I will lose her.

My brain is telling me it's because I am in love with her. Funny, isn't it? That I'm telling you, the one who I loved the most, that I am in love with someone else. Ironic, almost.

I love her, and I loved you. But you were never like that. You always seemed to be pushing me away. Sending me to college, then to New York, almost as if you didn't want me there. But I have already understood that you were not pushing me away, you were just pushing me towards a better 'me'. I was so unhappy with who I was during high school and you were the only one who ever really understood. So for that, I say thank you.

But still, I could not hate her for how much hold and influence she had had over my decisions and actions whilst we were engaged. So instead, I had begun to hate myself. I knew I should not be feeling that way, so I broke off the engagement almost as hastily as I had begun it.

She was mad and for that I do not blame her. She told me that I am living all too much in my old high school life. That I cannot let go of the past. But the past, and you, have made me who I am today. Although I am successful in New York I will never forget my roots. And I sure as hell did not forget you.

I know I should be telling someone who may be more likely to respond, Quinn maybe, or even Rachel or Kurt, but I am writing to you because you understand me the most.

I received your letter last week. The one where you recounted the story of us. How you felt. I was surprised that you sent it, and I wondered what it had meant between us. Six years had passed and yet you had never said a word up until that moment. I wondered where you had received my address from but Quinn had admitted to me that she had given it to you awhile ago. I was mad at her when she told me, but now I appreciate her gesture.

Even so, I doubted that the letter had been from you at first, I thought that maybe someone had somehow stolen your thoughts, your memories and wanted to torture me with their reminder, but I knew that was impossible, so the black ink that stained the paper must have been from the pen you were holding.

Truth be told I had written a similar letter. Wasn't it strange? How both of us had made so many imperishable memories yet we still had to write them down just to ensure that they would not be forgotten? But unlike you I did not have the guts to post the one that I had written yesterday. I have sent it now though. I hope the address Sam had given me was the correct one. If not, I'll be sure to get all up in his trouty mouth grill. I hope you receive it with no negative feelings.

Do you remember the last time we had seen each other? You did not brush up on that. But I remember it all to well. I had gone back to Lima for the first time since Finn had passed. Things were awkward between us, but then suddenly you smiled at me and I smiled back at you, and although we had been derailed for so long, we were immediately back on the right tracks.

It was always like that with us. Everything was so easy. We were two peas in a pod that had somehow managed to find our way back to each other.

I remember that night all too well. We sat on the bleachers, where we used to sit after our evening Cheerios practise every Friday. Your thigh was pressed up against mine and I told you I was sorry. You asked me why and I said I didn't know. I just felt like I had done you wrong somehow.

"I haven't written to you." I told you. You clutched my arm and I could feel my heart squirming in my chest as if someone were squeezing it.

"Nobody writes to each other anymore, it's the twentieth century," you told me knowingly. I laughed. I didn't bother correcting you. I never did. You told me that's a quality you liked about me. That I either corrected you nicely or I didn't correct you at all. Not like those who criticised you.

"I didn't inbox you or e-mail you or text you, and all those are twenty-first century things." I said in response. This time you laughed.

"I suppose."

Then it was quiet. "I wished you had written."

"So do I."

And then you wrapped your long arms around me and held me close and I wanted to cry so bad. I was never one to cry, ever, but being with you, being around you, it always made me feel weak. And that was not always in a bad way.

"I'm glad you were my first." Your whispered words felt like silk to my ears and I frowned because one minute we had been talking about communicating and now we were talking about being intimate and I didn't know why. I looked at your face, as pale as the moon that hung behind you. You cried tears that looked like the diamonds that hung on my mom's ears.

We kept that a secret, didn't we? That I was your first. Even after we started dating, we still kept it a secret. I never knew why. We were scared of the consequences back then, but now, I felt like I was too powerful to even deal with anything as simple as what I had feared as a teenager.

But looking at your face reminded me of every single feeling that we shared even though it was so long ago. I remembered the simple bliss that we shared and then the passionate fights that made me queasy even when I thought of them now. I had always kept a piece of you with me but now as I pressed my cheek against yours, I was giving it back to you. It was yours, no longer mine. It was doing neither of us good to be keeping a piece of each other.

So we made peace.

I remember you told me that you thought that I hated you after I had started dating Dani, that I'd forget about you and you were insignificant, as you would only be a girlfriend of the past. I told you I had thought the same thing when you had started dating Sam, and that's why I needed you back, why I was holding onto that piece of you that I had stolen, so tightly, because I could not bear to have those memories mean nothing to you when I held them so dear to myself.

But as I gave back that piece of you back to you, and yours, to me, I told you that I loved you.

And maybe I still do.

_Love,_

_Santana._

* * *

_Dear Santana, 15/12/20_

I honestly did not think that you would send a reply, let alone two, and I am so glad that you did. I know we have both grown, and at first I was willing to push my feelings aside and wish you well on your engagement. Truth be told I had heard the story from Quinn at first. We were sitting in the Lima Bean when she told me. I had been so shocked that I had accidentally spilt my coffee on her two thousand dollar dress. I would like to think she was more concerned about me than her dress that day, but we have yet to see.

I am sorry about your engagement but I am glad that you are happy as you are now. Sometimes solitary is better than being with someone who is not right for you. I think both of us know this first hand.

But, Santana. I was with someone. And when I received your letters, I couldn't care to have another hand caressing my face. I definitely do not expect anything from you, but I cannot help the feelings that I have. You may have given me back your piece of me but I never gave yours back to you.

Santana, we have been apart for so many years. In those years I have learnt so much about life, so much about living. When I was with you, I needed to be loved by you or only you. You were the only person that I could see and I know that's how you felt about me too. But a relationship where we ignore the outside world does not guarantee a healthy one.

I wanted you to accept everything about me. Every person has their flaws, and I yearned for you to adore mine. I craved so badly for you to be my protector, my lover, my everything.

But then you'd left. I know, I pushed you towards your dream. It was then I really realised that I loved you. When I really understood the saying, 'If you love something, you'll let it go.' And so I let you go. But then I was left alone. I was forced to become Brittany without her Santana.

But time had passed, and I had grown. I had gone to the best college in the entire world. Everyone was so proud of me, and I hoped that you were, too. I did everything to make you proud. And in doing so, I found myself. I had been too weak in high school, too bland, so confused about simple matters, to think that I was good enough for you.

But it has been six years, and I believe now I am the person that you always wanted. A person just as strong as you. A person who know where they stands in the world and one who won't stop until they let everyone know it.

I always wondered if I'd ever hear you say those three words again, because I think I would like to say them back to you. In person. I will be in New York on the 21st and I hope to hear from you before then.

_Love,_

Brittany.

* * *

_Dear Brittany, 22/12/20_

It was amazing seeing you yesterday. Your eyes are just as blue and as bright as they always were, and your hair still as soft. I loved the little cafe that we met at. I didn't even know that it existed. You were always like that, telling me new things that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Showing me new things.

Isn't it funny that I told you that you looked exactly the same as you had all those years ago at the same time you said it to me? Nothing much has changed between us, has it? I know we have definitely both changed as people, but the connection between us certainly hasn't. And that said something, and we both knew it.

This letter is going to be short and sleep since we spent so much time last night intertwined on my couch filling ourselves with popcorn and chocolate watching movie after movie after movie. I have to sleep or I will be unable to wake up for work, and that would definitely not be good.

The only word I can hear now echoing in my mind is the 'yes' that you said so simply and harmoniously, like you knew exactly that I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend again. It keeps on running through my mind like an athlete on a field track, and I do not know when it'll stop.

_Love,  
_  
_Santana._

P.S - I feel so old and coupley writing actual letters to each other. Glad we're going to stop when you move in with me ;)_  
_

* * *

_Dear Santana, 12/12/21_

I know it seems silly now that we're together to continue writing letters, but since I wrote the first letter that brought us together, I thought I would also be the last.

I thought it was appropriate to mail this to our address now. When I went to the post office to try and mail it, the post person said I should just leave it in our mailbox and save me the cost of a stamp, so that is what I did.

I can picture what you did right before you opened this letter. You came home from work. Maybe Lord Tubbington greeted you on the sidewalk. You walked to our mailbox. There's a few letters. A bill for me. Another bill for me. An overdue fine. I'm sorry, sometimes I lose track of what I have to pay off.

But then there's a letter addressed to you. It's handwritten in my writing. In crayon. You know how much I love crayon. You have a silly smile on your face as you appreciate the small gesture, but in a few seconds, you will realise it is not small at all.

You're too excited so you put away my bills in your giant coat pocket. You open my letter carefully, as if it were a special envelope made of glass. You open it and there's this letter. You'll smile at how accurate it is. But now you're going to gasp as you see what is written on the back.

Santana, I've been searching for a correct answer all my life and I am sure you are the only one who can give me the right answer to the right question.

_**"Will you marry me?"**_

Love,

Brittany.

* * *

_Dear Brittany, 12/12/21_

You know I always like to have the last word. (Or in this case, the last letter.)

Yes.

_Love,  
_  
_Santana._

* * *

**AN: **So here's your happy ending guys :) Hope you liked my little drabble because I'm hoping to write a few more in the future because they're fun! Any comments are very much appreciated!

P.S - I know they moved fast (the dates are there if we all want to be exact), but hey, it's Brittana, and I sure as hell hope they move as fast in the hundreth episode as they do in this chapter LOL.


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